Parsons Challenge

This is my Parsons Challenge.
In order to view it, click on the thumbnail to the bottom right (for future reference, the cursor icon represents external links).
This will open a tab showing the exact way the challenge is meant to be seen.

You can then click on the "Show Process" button at the bottom of that page.
This will explain why I chose to create the challenge the way I did.

Once you're done, feel free to click on any of the projects in the moleskin above.

Califa Gallery

As you may have read in the Parsons Challenge, my home is an open gallery (and store) for furniture & art. Recently, my mother asked me to redesign her current website, the main reason being that the previous subcategories were too subtle and very easy to miss, so that's what I focused on. (link to the left)

Along with the new design, we decided to go ahead and rebrand everything.
I created a new permanent template for email brochures, as the design and fonts were different in each and every email previously. Business cards and coasters were also created.
My mother wanted a circular font so I used the wonderful Champagne and Limousines font and created a Hebrew version of it, which you can see in the thumbnails.

Course Projects

These are projects from the 6B design preparatory course I completed a year ago.

Most of these pieces are the result of my first experience with their corresponding medium.

Joelfolio.com

Last year, I decided to move to New York early on in order to get to know the city.
(I hear you don't really get much free time as a design student :P).
I wanted to find a web design company for an internship during this period.

The thing is, I didn't have any portfolio available online, so I decided to create one. I named it Joelfolio.

You can get to the latest, refined version of Joelfolio by clicking the leftmost thumbnail.
You can get to the first version of Joelfolio by clicking the rightmost thumbnail.

All thumbnails in between show some features implemented into the new version of Joelfolio.

Az Bye.com

Once it was certain I was moving to New York, a friend of mine asked me to build our group of friends a website. We were bored.
We started searching for domains that would work and arrived at azbye.com.

"Az bye", in Hebrew, translates as "So bye" or more correctly as "In that case, bye". It isn't so much a common phrase in Hebrew as it is something that my group of friends keeps saying randomly. We figured it would work in English too since people would read it as A-Z Bye.

My first thought was to just have a hub for our twitter feeds. While I was designing the site, though, I started expanding upon this idea.
The site became a hub not only for our twitter feeds, but for our entire internet profiles - including blog posts and shared URLs.

What makes this site special is the layout of the information. 6 different people with their "social" activity in a stream under them, in something I've started calling a "Gangfeed".

T-Shirt Sites

After the army, I came up with an idea for a t-shirt company. Basically, I'd be making personalized Che Guevara-style shirts with funny catch phrases and everyone would rejoice.
The first version of the company was named Threshold (after the Photoshop filter which made the creation of these shirt design ridiculously easy). I decided to give the site a grungy look and keep the colors down to red, white and black - just like the shirts.

After some thought, I decided that the name Threshold wouldn't catch in Hebrew, as when you're speaking the language the word doesn't exactly roll off your tongue. I changed the name to Tofu shirts. Tofu breaks down into T-of-U. T-shirt of you. The site also had to change in order to suit the new name, and tofu seemed very marshmellowy to me, so I went with a cloudy mocha-colored design.

The thumbnails open terribly coded site templates in new tabs. The sites don't work, they're just images.

Children's Book

I got a job a while back as an illustrator for a children's book about a chicken that loses her chicks (and later finds them, surprisingly).

A friend of mine, the previous illustrator, told me about the job.
I quickly sent the author a quick sketch (the second to left thumbnail).
She liked the cartoony style but wanted a more motherly character.

The second to right thumbnail is a character sheet I prepared for her and the right thumbnail is the character we finally agreed on.

I am an older brother to one younger brother. My father is addicted to Facebook. My mother is a lesbian. My house is a gallery where people buy Asian art and European furniture. I am as standard as my family.

Born in England > Lived in Japan > Moved to Israel.
Somewhere along the way I fell in love with design.

I am outgoing and friendly with a passion for learning. I'm also a perfectionist and quite short.

To: Office of Admission, Parsons, New School of Design.
Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Joel Califa and I am an applicant for direct entry to the Design and Technology
program. I’m writing this letter knowing that you have the power to make my dreams come true.

I designed my first website when I was 13, using awful table coding and the worst graphical trends imaginable. In the years since, my interest in web design and development has blossomed from a hobby into the only thing I can imagine myself doing.

I love the internet and though it may sound cliché I would like to become the best web designer I can possibly be; to contribute to the world through my design and to create memorable designs that stir something within people.

After searching near and far for the best schools that can help me get there, I am certain that Parsons is the one I want to attend. It teaches the web as I believe it should be taught, values programming and development as much as it does design.

Despite the way my website must come across, and I greatly hope you like it, I do not believe I am nearly as good as I can be. I’m playing it by ear (or eye, if you prefer). I want to unlearn what I know now and relearn design the right way. I am eager to learn anything you are willing to teach me.

You may notice that my high school diploma was less than stellar. This isn’t because I lacked the smarts or the ability to study. As a teenager, unfortunately, my mind was occupied with other things. Put bluntly, school simply wasn’t as important to me then as it is now.

High school, to me, feels like a lifetime ago. There are nearly 4 years separating the person I was then from the person I am now. I have served in the Israeli Defense Forces where I completed over 6 months of basic and advanced fighter training, and 18 months more in the infantry and field intelligence corps.

After my army service, I accumulated over a year of work experience in the high-tech industry in Israel. It was only due to the prospect of attending Parsons that I gave up a career in that particular company. During that time I completed a 6 month design preparatory program. I know what I want to do with my life. If I attend Parsons, you can expect to see only the highest marks from me.

In short, I’m in love with web design, I’m in love with web development and I’m in love with Parsons. I’m willing to put my heart and soul into every single project you have me do, no matter how small or how large. I’m not looking for an easy ride. I know it’s going to be the hardest challenge I’ve ever faced and I’m up for the task.